


Comparatively Speaking

by KC (KCat)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 05:52:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1733444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KCat/pseuds/KC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an experiment with time travel goes wrong, John Watson finds himself on the Enterprise. Bones takes him under his wing, and they discover they have something in common-- scrambling after the madmen they share space with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comparatively Speaking

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Anything yours can do, mine can do worse.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/542158) by [impulsereader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/impulsereader/pseuds/impulsereader). 



“Damnit Jim, when the hell has that mad bastard gotten us this time?”

Dr. McCoy stared around the grungy warehouse with wooden beams and concrete floor. This was nowhere in the 23rd century. Dust motes danced in the pools of light cast by… light bulbs?

“Captain, we seem to be in an abandoned warehouse.”

“Thank you, Spock. Calm down, Bones,” Kirk addressed the doctor. “Scotty is working on getting us back to the right time period. You know he hasn’t perfected teleportation across time streams.”

“Well, you definitely aren’t going to be able to save Admiral Pike and get him on board with revealing Admiral Marcus’s plans for Khan _if he can’t hit the right century!_ ” This last was directed through Bones’s communicator to the engineer meant to get them to the right time frame.

“Oy! I’m working on it, ye —”

“We are in London though, Mr. Scott?” Kirk cut him off before another argument could erupt between his doctor and engineer.

“Aye, Captain.”

“See? Would it kill you to look on the bright side? Not only are we in the right city, but Scotty hasn’t blown us up yet.”

“Mmmhm, yes, that’s _real_ comforting.” Bones squinted into the shadows, trying to make out the words on the wooden crate to his left for clues to the date.

Kirk smirked at the invective that came over the communication line before he pressed closed on the inbound line. That would insure that Scotty would hear them, but they wouldn’t hear Scotty unless he released the button.

“Captain, you do realize—”

“— mucking about with time travel is a dangerous business of which you disapprove? We’re _well aware_ , Mr. Spock.”

“I don’t much care for the scenery, Scotty. If you could hurry it up, I’d be ever so grateful,” Bones spoke into his communicator.

“Hold yer horses. Ye cannae hurry genius.”

Bones rolled his eyes, and followed Kirk’s lead in silencing Scotty’s line on his communicator.

“You know, this isn’t the Kobayashi Maru, and it doesn’t have to be. We’re just… rearranging things a bit more to our liking.”

“I didn’t see you arguing this hard about going back in time to save all of Vulcan when Scotty discovered his newest trick,” Bones cut into the conversation.

“See? We already have proof that time travel isn’t going to explode the universe. And correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that exactly how we ended up with two Spocks in the same universe.”

Spock’s lips thinned at the reminder. He let his silent disapproval fill the space as he pulled out his tricorder to scan their location for any threats.

“Look, if we can save a few billion lives by tweaking a few things, then what’s the big deal?”

“Your flippant attitude regarding endangering the fabric of space and time is what concerns me, Captain.”

Bones motioned to Spock, indicating the crates with a tilt of his head, and stepped back to give the Vulcan room to work.

“Oh come on Spock. I’m trying to save lives here, not get laid twice as often.” He paused as that thought takes hold. “Although, the idea does have a certain merit now that I think about it.”

With a frown, Spock moved to the next container.

Bones stepped farther into the pathway leading between stacks of more wooden crates as Spock raised his scanner.

“Jim, we already agreed not to submit the equation to Star Fleet, and to limit this tech to life altering tragedies only. Besides, someone is bound to notice if there are two of you running around the academy campus trying to sleep with the few people you managed to miss the first time around,” the doctor grumbled. He crossed his arms at the younger man, glowering in disapproval.

“You know, I never got a chance with, what was her name? The pretty brunette, Alyssa, Marissa? Eh, it was something-issa. Do you remember Rand’s first name, Bones? You had Grav classes with her. ”

“Captain?”

“What?” Kirk straightened to look at his commanding officer. He didn’t like that furrowed-brow look on his friend’s face when he wasn’t the cause of it. “What is it?”

“These crates each contain approximately 36.28 kilograms of benzoyl-methyl-ecgonine.”

“ _Oh shit_.”

Kirk cut a sharp look at Bones. “What does that mean? What’s this benozo-whatever- he-said?”

“Cocaine.”

Kirk raised his eyebrows in an unspoken invitation to clue him in on what they were on about with this ‘cocaine.’

“It’s a drug, Jim; a highly addictive and highly _illegal_ drug. There was a big underground market for it back in the 20th through the early 21st century. The Federation didn’t manage to eradicate the use of the drug until the late 21st century.”

“So, that means we’re somewhere between the late 1900’s and the late 2000’s. That’s good to know.”

“No, Jim, it is not good to know. It means we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Captain, I agree with Dr. McCoy’s assessment. It is unlikely that the criminals who trafficked in illegal contraband would leave their merchandise unguarded, and I am now detecting several life forms headed in our direction.”

Spock pulled his phaser from its holster, even as he kept his gaze on his scanner. Kirk followed Spock’s example, reaching for his weapon, and slipping into an alert crouch.

A gunshot ripped through the air. A volley of several more shots rang out, the sound difficult to pin point, echoing as they were through the warehouse.

McCoy scrambled for his communicator, pressing buttons at random. “Scotty, beam us up. Beam us up right now!”

A man turned the corner leading to the aisle where Dr. McCoy stood exposed. Yellow light swirled around Kirk and Spock, but a back-step caused the yellow to fade as it formed at Bones’s feet.

“Bones!” Kirk’s voice came through the communicator. “Scotty get Bones on board, that’s an order.”

“I second that order!” Bones called.

“Hold still, will ye? I canno’ get a lock on ye if ye’re moving around!”

The dark man with tattoos and rings glinting in his face raised a wicked gleam of black metal, and aimed at Bones.

“Any second now, Scotty!”

“What are you doing? Get down!” a voice he didn’t recognize shouted behind the doctor, but this time Bones resisted the urge to move a muscle. The golden light wrapped around him, and he could feel his extremities dematerializing.

A body crashed into him, just as the bullet exploded from the muzzle of the gun.

He landed on the transporter platform, tangled with the heavy weight on top of him. The man who collided with him rolled away and hands grabbed at him, pulling him to sit upright.

“Are you okay?”

He looked up to see the man who saved him. The man wore jeans and a black, patched jacket that wouldn’t be out of place in the current century. Blond hair cut short as Starfleet regulation, heterochromatic eyes of brown and blue in a plain face currently lined with worry for Bones.

“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

Bones stared. “Who are you?”

“Who is he? Ne’er mind who he is. Look at this! Ye damaged the transporter controls!”

They both turned to look at the Scottish man in red moaning and pulling his hair until it stood up in spikes. There was a bullet hole in one side and smoke pouring from the top display.

The stranger looked around, taking in the transporter room.

“If the bullet hit that thing there… why are sparks flying from that wall panel over there? Is that supposed to happen?” The blond man eyed the sparking display panel behind Scotty’s head.

“Don’t think so, but then I’m just a doctor not an engineer.”

“Oh, right?” the stranger asked with interest, but without looking away from the display going on in front of him. “I’m John, by the way.”

“Call me Bones.”

They both watched Scotty’s dancing around the transporter station in agitation as the main console did its best rendition of a fire hazard.

“Excuse me, but where are we?”

“You’re on the Enterprise.”

“Yes, well, that’s nice… except for the fact it tells me absolutely nothing. Let’s try this a different way, how did we from inside the middle of a musty, old warehouse to…” he looks around for a moment, “a discotheque before the ball drops? Help me out, because I’m a little confused.”

“Did… did ye just call the most advanced spaceship in the entire federation a discotheque? Bones, get ‘im out o’ here or I cannae be held responsible for my actions.” Scotty wheeled toward them, puffed up in indignation.

“Don’t you have a transporter to fix, Scotty?” Bones asked. “And where’s the captain?”

The door swooshed open before he finished speaking.

“I’m here. Bones, are you okay?”

Spock followed close at his heels.

“Spaceship? Did he just say spaceship?”

“Yeah, he did.” Bones turned his attention to Kirk. “Jim, this man saved my life. If he hadn’t intervened that bullet would be in me instead of the transporter panel.”

“Who are you people? Also, his ears are pointed,” John pointed out to anyone listening, which turned out to be no one but the pointy-eared individual in question. From him, John got a raised brow-of-scorn; akin to those he received from Sherlock too often to feel offended.

“Captain, this is exactly the sort of thing I warned you about when you decided to let Scotty experiment with time travel. Now we have to get this human not only back to Earth, but back to the right time. And Mr. Scott has not perfected the art of getting people to the correct time period as yet.” Spock addressed the man in the golden shirt.

“Mind yerself, Pointy. No one’s going anywhere until I get the transporter fixed,” Scotty cut in, with a dark glare at the group standing on the platform.

“So you guys are saying you’re space aliens from the future? Is that why your ears are pointed?” John looked back and forth between the strangers.

“Technically, CommanderSpockhere is the only one who would classify as an alien from your perspective. Well, him and Keenser, of course.” Kirk waved over Scotty’s shoulder.

“Get down from there!” Scotty rushed to shoo the grayish-green alien with a face like a wrinkled clam from his perch on the no longer smoking station.

John blinked, but dragged his attention back to Kirk, who continued speaking.

“The rest of us were born on Earth. But, yes, you are in the future, and this is a spaceship. I’m Captain James T. Kirk of the Enterprise, and you’ve already met Dr. Leonard McCoy.”

“I’m John Watson.” He tilted his head and corrected himself, “Dr. John Watson, former Captain of the Fifth _Northumberland_ Fusiliers.”

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Watson. As you can probably tell, we’re having some _slight_ technical difficulties at the moment. So, we won’t be able to send you home until Mr. Scott has finished the repairs, and duplicated our previous coordinates. In the interim, I hope you don’t mind staying on our ship. I’m sure Bones will be willing to be your guide. Meanwhile, the rest of us will work towards ensuring your safe return your proper time period. Bones, can you please show Dr. Watson around and get him settled in some guest quarters? Mr. Spock looks like he wants to lecture me some more, and there’s no reason we should all have to sit through that, is there?” The captain gave a big, fake smile and flicked his eyes at the exit.

“Right. Come with me.” Bones stepped off the platform and speed walked to the swooshing door.

John, taking the hint, bounced to the floor and hurried after him.

“Captain, I don’t think you realize—” the door cut off the rest of Spock’s words.

“That sounded like a close call,” John said, following Bones down the hall.

Bones slowed to let John draw even with him as they walked. “Oh believe me, it was. His latest scheme has not only not been successful as yet, but ripped a man out of space and time, which Jim is going to hear about. For _hours_.”

They both laughed and kept walking.

“How do you find anything around here? The hallways all look the same.”

Bones rubbed his chin. He’d never had a problem finding his way around the Enterprise, even with the training they got before being assigned. “All the starships follow a basic set up design. You learn about the layout of all the ships at the Academy before you ever step foot on a ship. After that, I guess it’s just a matter of just remembering which floor you’re on.”

They came upon a window and John froze to stare at the stars.

“Does it make you miss your home?”

“Hm?”

“Seeing the stars out there, does it make you miss the Earth?”

“No. I haven’t been here long enough to miss the Earth. It just makes me think of my best friend. You know, he doesn’t know a thing about astronomy. Deleted the solar system from his mind because it wasn’t useful to his work.”

“Deleted the solar system… do I want to know?”

“Probably not. Sherlock is amazing, but he is a bit of a difficult character to explain to someone who has never met him.”

“You’re taking all this remarkably well,” Bones observed.

John pressed his hand to the cool glass. “Yes, well, either I got shot trying to save you, in which case, I’m currently on some incredible drugs,” he said, “or I really am on a spaceship… which would be just a bit awesome.”

“Come on, there’s more to see around here than the star-spangled spacescape.”

“So… Bones?”

“What?”

“No, I mean, Bones, the name, where does it come from? Is it because you’re a doctor?”

“Nah, it’s ‘cuz when my wife divorced me she left me nothing but my—”

“—bones,” they finished in unison.

John nodded. “Gotcha.”

“Yep, she took everything I owned, and I ended up in space with a crazy man, God help me.”

“If it helps at all, losing everything you own isn’t _that_ bad in the grand scheme of things. I mean, there are worse divorces to be had.”

Bones crossed his arms and raised a challenging brow at the other man. “Do tell.”

“Well, you could have been married to a woman who was actually an assassin with a fake identity; was secretly sent to kill you by an international criminal mastermind; had a secret affair that resulted in a child with the same international criminal mastermind; claimed the child she was carrying was yours, instead of the spawn of said international criminal mastermind; shot your best friend; and divorced you to return to the side of the international criminal mastermind who tried to kill you and your best friend on multiple occasions.”

“… It could have been worse when you put it like that.”

“Bitch got the house and car, too.”

“Ouch.” Bones winced.

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s all fine.” John ran a hand through his hair, and then spoke in a lower voice, as though imparting a secret, “I do rather miss the car, though. Paying for cabs gets expensive, and I’m not nearly as adept at summoning them as my flatmate. Honestly, I don’t know how he does it.”

“Fine or not, it is my professional opinion as a doctor, that you could use a drink.”

“Are you offering?” John perked up at the thought.

“I’ve got some whiskey in my room if you’re interested.”

“Oh God, yes.”

 

 

   ***

 

Bones set the bottle on the table with a couple of tumblers of liquid gold.

John eyed the bottle. “Is that going to be enough?”

“You’re right, best to be prepared. Computer, closet.” Bones got up and strolled to the space beside his bed that opened to reveal a selection of blue shirts and black pants hung neatly to the left, and casual slacks and t-shirts hung haphazardly draped over hangers to the right. A collection of bottles was stacked waist high across the entire length of the compartment.

“Someone’s ambitious.” John grinned, and knocked his drink back.

“Do you know how hard it is to get the real stuff? Have some respect.”

John thumped his chest as the whiskey slid home, and then licked his lips clean. “ _Real_ stuff? What, you guys make fake alcohol? What’s the point?”

“There isn’t one. Look, other people might not be able to tell the difference between synthahol and alcohol, but that’s because they don’t have tongues in their heads. These blasted replicators don’t make real whiskey.” Bones returned to his spot with three extra bottles cradled in his arms. At his word, the closet door slid shut. “It cost half my credits, and I had to smuggle it on board in medical crates, but we’re about to head out on a five year mission to explore unchartered regions of outer space. And I’m going to be the man responsible for the health and safety of this bunch of maniacs.”

“When you put it that way—”

Bones refilled John’s cup.

“Ta – when you put it that way, a closet full of alcohol makes total sense.”

Bones settled himself more comfortably on the floor, and pulled his own glass close. He pulled a sip, and licked his lips. “Mmmm. Yep, between me and Scotty, we might have enough between us to survive this mission with our sanity intact.”

“Scotty?” John huffed a laugh into his cup. “That’s the uh, excitable guy with the receding hairline?”

Bones made a noise of agreement around the rim of his cup. He swallowed to answer, “Excitable, yeah, that’s one word for him. Montgomery Scott is our Chief Engineer. I don’t think you were formally introduced seeing as he was kicking up such a fuss. He probably wouldn’t have been so abrupt with you if the ship hadn’t been damaged, and you hadn’t accidentally insulted her. I mean, don’t get me wrong, fussing is his natural state. I’m just sayin’ don’t take it personal-like.”

“I don’t know; he was kind of amusing. Reminds me of Sherlock when there’s too long a stretch where no one’s had the decency to get murdered.” John noticed the look on his new friend’s face and cracked up. “Not like that! Oh, I am going to have to try to explain Sherlock for that one to make sense.” He paused as he realized what he just said. “Actually, I don’t think there are enough words in the world to explain Sherlock. I just meant that he gets all out of sorts when there’s no case on.”

“Case?” Bones raised his brows.

“Sherlock, that’s my flatmate, is a consulting detective, you see. Only one in the world. The police come to him when people get murdered, and he sorts out the ‘who did it’ for them so they can get on with collecting the evidence. He’s helped to catch all sorts of killers. He has this thing he does where he can take one look at you and know your whole history and everywhere you’ve been that day, and what you’ve eaten, and… and just everything. It’s amazing. If there aren’t any cases for him to deduce, he starts deducing people. Believe me when I say that that’s unfortunate for everyone involved.”

“I can imagine,” Bones responded dryly. He sipped his own drink, hissing at the burn.

John knocked back another, made a scrunched up face, and then shook his head. “Not until you’ve experienced it for yourself, you can’t. And Sherlock going through withdrawals is the _worst_.”

“Likes to be entertained, does he? Sounds like our captain.”

“I sincerely doubt your captain gets up to the kind of trouble my flat mate does,” John argued as he poured his next cup.

“Oh really? There are over four hundred people on this ship. First thing Jim does when he gets command of the Enterprise? He scrambles us all out of bed, in the middle of the night, to take us on a (unauthorized, mind you) joyride through space. And when he gets us docked back before the next morning, told our superiors that he was testing the crew to make sure they could ‘respond as a cohesive unit in the face of an unexpected emergency.’ They actually acted like they bought that line of bullshit.”

Bones pulled his cup to his lips, and then paused. “God, I hope it was an act.”

“See, now that sort of thing sounds more like Mycroft. Not the doing anything for fun bit, I don’t think the man knows what fun is, but the abusing his power to suit his whims bit. He’s supposed to be the responsible one, but, holy crap, the things he gets away with just because he ‘holds a minor position in the British government.’ You know, the first time we met, he kidnapped me. No, no, don’t laugh, I’m telling the truth.”

John got his own giggles under control enough to continue. He gathered himself with a drink, and planted his elbows on the table.

“I was walking around after my first crime scene with Sherlock, and looking for a taxi because he buggered off and left me there by myself with a bunch of cops who had no idea who I was or why I was there. So I’m limping along with my cane and every single pay phone I pass—”

“Wait, pay phones? People pay to use communication devices in your time? I thought technology was more advanced than that.”

“Oh it is. It’s just the old phones still work and the government’s not going to shell out money to upgrade them while the war’s still on is it?”

“Ah, bureaucracy,” Bones said, “is the same in every century.”

The two clink their drinks together in a toast.

“Anyway, he rang every phone I passed until I finally gave up and answered it. I hear some guy on the line telling me to get into the car that was coming to collect me. He commandeered the city surveillance system to try to intimidate me. All ridiculously James Bond-esque if you ask me. Then I got drove all the way out to a warehouse on the other side of town.”

“These ‘abandoned warehouses’ of yours seem like they get more action than Jim does,” Bones says with a shake of his head. “What is up with that?”

“I dunno.” John blinks. “We have all our shady dealings in abandoned warehouses. It’s something of a tradition, and you just don’t mess with tradition. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah! Got me out there so could make vague, threatening comments. Come to find out later, he’s Sherlock’s big brother and he’s trying to get a babysitter to spy on his baby brother. If that’s not an abuse of power, I don’t know what is.”

“Why does your buddy, Sherlock, need spyin’ on?”

“I dunno, but Sherlock was right. I should have agreed to take the money, and split it with him. We might have some privacy if I had. His brother keeps leaving bugs and cameras to record us in the house. I found one behind the toilet the other day.”

John lifted his cup to his lips; then frowned at the bottom. “My cup is empty.”

“Don’t worry, I can fix that.”

“Thanks, mate.”

“So I take it you and this Mycroft aren’t friends then?”

“With friends like him, I would never need enemies. That man is a piece of work. I don’t know how he can be so much like Sherlock and so different all at the same time. I’m pretty sure Mycroft has never ridden the tube splattered with pig’s blood, that’s for certain.” John sipped his refilled glass. “I doubt sincerely that he’s ever ridden the tube, come to that.”

Bones paused with his cup halfway to his mouth as the comment soaked in. He set his cup down on the table.

“I want you to know that I’m picturing your friend as Carrie now.”

“Oh God, no, he could never make a convincing Carrie. Getting him to believe a crowd that had insincerely picked him in a popularity contest wouldn’t be possible. Detective, remember?”

A swig of whiskey, and John muttered into his cup, “Besides, with his coloring he’d look bloody ridiculous in a pink dress.”

They both crack up.

“Ok, so back to the reason why your flatmate was wandering around covered in blood?” Bones grinned at his friend’s flushed face. Definitely the alcohol was starting to hit the blond man. He felt a little warm and fuzzy around the edges himself.  

“Hm? Oh right, he had this case he was working on that I never cared to ask the particulars of. He shows up at our apartment with his clothes and harpoon all drenched. Next thing I know, I’m sitting in the living room trying to calm him down because there isn’t another case to take his mind off his latest attempt at quitting smoking, so there he is swanning about in his dressing gown and waving his harpoon like a madman, and deducing anyone unfortunate enough to get in his line of sight. When there weren’t any interesting cases coming up quick enough the crazy bastard threatened me with Cluedo. No, do not laugh at me; you have no idea what he’s like. I really should’ve taken his brother up on his offer. I’m always running after Sherlock, trying to keep him out of trouble anyway. I only wish I got paid for it.”

“Speaking of harpoons and running about, let me tell you about the time Jim dragged me to Nibiru,” Bones cuts in before John can be distracted by his unfortunate lot. After all, he hasn’t even begun to cover the reality of living with James T. Kirk as your captain.

“Nibiru?” John snags the empty bottle to clear a space for Bones to set a new one in its place. “What’s that then?”

“It’s a class M planet that had an active volcano.”

“Had? You mean it doesn’t still?” John started to peal the edge of the label off the bottle.

“Had one. Not so active at the moment, but I’m getting to that. Now this volcano is about to explode, and when it does the whole species inhabiting the planet is going to get wiped out. Jim decides we’ve gotta save them. Now we got rules as part of the Star Fleet, and the biggest one is the Prime Directive, which is don’t screw around with the evolution of the less technologically advanced planets we might stumble across, right? Now, he gets Pointy to help him cook up this idea about freezing the volcano that’s about to explode, but we can only help out if we can do it _without_ being seen by the natives. This leaves Jim and me to lure them away, so Spock can drop the ice-bomb thingy that’s going to save this planet. There we are, in these ridiculous robes, being chased through the woods by these angry, gray aliens who are throwing honest-to-God spears at our backs. _Spears!_ All because Jim stole some sort of sacred scroll of theirs and then _stunned_ our damn ride, so we couldn’t make a proper getaway _like we were supposed to_.”

John stuck the label to his forehead. His brow wiggle made the label dance. “Sounds intense.”

“Stop that, I’m not done yet.”

“Oooh there’s more? Go on then.”

“These guys are right behind with their… loincloths and their _spears_ , and there is no way in hell that we’re going to be able to make it to the beach like we were supposed to now. Jim, the crazy bastard, runs us toward a cliff where we have to jump into the ocean to get away from these guys.”

John chuckles. “That actually sounds like fun.”

“No! Not fun!”

“You followed him.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? If it’s a choice between jump off a cliff and being impaled for Jim’s stupidity, then yes, I will choose jumping off a cliff.”

“But _you followed him_ ,” John sing-songed.

“Excuse me, Mr. Babysitter, but it was that or die. Are you going to try to convince me you wouldn’t follow your madman if the choice was ‘or death’?” Bones crossed his arms.

“Course I would. Said it sounded fun, didn’t I?” He propped his arms on the table and leaned close to Bones. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Very deliberately, Bones raised his glass and caught John’s eyes with his own. He tossed his head back, allowing the precious whiskey to slide down his throat like water. He thumped the empty cup on the table in front of him in silent acceptance of the challenge.

John grinned and reached for the bottle to pour them both a new round.

**Author's Note:**

> impulsereader was kind enough to let me writer the opposite outcome of their argument, so definitely go read hers if you've got the time. Also this story is unedited and unbritpicked. Any mistakes are mine.  
> (If it's a formatting error then please explain how to fix it, because I really don't understand how the system works here. Sorry for that.)


End file.
